Universität Regensburg
Institut für Amerikanistik
HS: Slave Narratives and Neo-Slave Narratives

Hannah Crafts, The Bondwoman’s Narrative,
The (Un-) Reliability of the Narrator

by: Sylvia Hadjetian

Table of Content

1. Introduction to Reliable and Unreliable Narration p. 3

2. Signals for Unreliable Narration Inside the Main Text p. 4

2.1 Different Types of Unreliable Narrators p. 4
2.2 Point of View p. 9
2.3 Characters p. 10

3. Signals Outside the Text for (Un-) Reliable Narration p. 11

3.1 Records of the Real Author, the Story and the Text Itself p. 11
3.2 The Knowledge of the Reader p. 12

4. Text Signals for (Un-) Reliable Narration p. 17

4.1 Admitted Unreliability p. 18
4.2. Paratextual Signals p. 19
4.3 Explicit Contradictions of the Narrator p. 20
4.4 Discrepancies between the Reconstructed and Narrated Story p. 21
4.5 Signals for a High Degree of Emotional Involvement p. 22
4.6 Deliberate Addressing and Controlling of the Reader p. 23
4.7 Genre, Copying and Language Style p. 25

5. Conclusion p. 28

6. Works Cited p. 29

The following term paper deals with the question of reliability or unreliability of the narrator in Hannah Crafts’ The Bondwoman’s Narrative. But before the narrator’s reliability is analysed, some definitions and background information on reliability and unreliability shall be presented.

1. Introduction to Reliable and Unreliable Narration

The main question is if the narrator’s presentation of himself and the story is reliable or not¹. Everything a reliable narrator says is true and the narrator knows everything that is necessary for the understanding of the story. A reliable narrator presents himself as fully understanding the plot and therefore the reader is never in doubt of the narrator’s role but able to take everything he is told for granted. Unreliable is a person or thing that cannot be counted on or trusted. Through an unreliable narrator, events sometimes become distorted and readers are misled. If the reader once notices the unreliability of the story presented, the status of the narrative worlds, its truth and authenticity and the authenticity of the narrator itself are called into question². This question is therefore dependent on the relation between fiction and reality³. There are different degrees of unreliability as well⁴. But it is also important to know that a reliable narrator is not necessarily one that the readers always agree with⁵. The readers can find the narrator’s values repugnant and his conclusions stupid⁶. An unreliable narrator forces the readers to reinterpret many of his statements in order to arrive at a knowledge and understanding of what really happened⁷. Some definitions take the implied author as their main criterion. He is the person narrating the story. The readers need a sensibility on which to base their interpretations and this is the implied author^8. Booth⁹ calls “a narrator reliable when he speaks for or acts in accordance with the norms of the work (the implied author′s norms) and unreliable when he does not. For Prince¹⁰, a reliable narrator behaves in accordance with the implied author’s norms¹¹. If he is unreliable, his norms and behaviour are not in accordance with the implied author’s norms, he is a narrator whose values like tastes, judgements and moral sense diverge from those of the implied author’s¹². For Nünning¹³, it is not the implied author’s norms that are of importance but the norms and perceptions of the real readers. In cases where the narrator is not reliable, the reader will probably ask himself if it is the authorial intention to have an unreliable narrator in order to confuse the reader or if the author himself is unreliable and if so, why¹⁴.

But now the question is how the reader can distinguish reliable from unreliable narration. There are several aspects of a story that can be unreliable, namely the interpretation of events and norms by the narrator, the presentation of the main characters and the facts presented¹⁵. To come to a final conclusion about the narrator’s reliability, the interaction between textual signals and the world knowledge of the reader are decisive and of the same importance and relevance¹⁶. The whole semantic text structure is relevant as well as all the implicit information the reader gets when reading¹⁷. This implicit information can create a second story that is hidden behind the main plot and which is often closer to reality¹⁸. But to construct the truth, the knowledge of the readers is indispensable. All these signals for the unreliability of the narrator will be more closely analysed in the following chapters. However, during the process of reading, every narrator shall be considered as innocent until proven guilty¹⁹.

2. Signals for Unreliable Narration Inside the Main Text²⁰

2.1 Different Types of Unreliable Narrators ²¹

By using different criteria to explain unreliable narration, it is possible to group unreliable narrators into different categories. This chapter shall give a short overview of the most common types of unreliable narrators with an emphasis at the end on the types of narrators present in The Bondwoman’s Narrative. The first group are narrators who are not serious such as picaros, ironic persons, humorists, satirists, rogues, clowns or parodists. Their job is it to amuse people, to make jokes or to criticise negative aspects in life in a humorous way. In order to do that, they use exaggerations or do not always tell the truth. It is therefore difficult to guess how much of what has been said by them is true or false. Other unreliable narrators are so-called “pathological narrators“²². They are normally mad monologists, megalomaniacs or fanatics that have hallucinations or are paranoid and can therefore not make a difference between dream and reality²³. Liars, swindlers and show-offs know exactly what they are doing when not telling the truth as well as bearers of secrets and enigmatic people. All these types of narrators use their lies intentionally in order to reach a certain goal. This is not the case with another group of unreliable narrators, namely epistemic limited narrators such as blind people. Relevant for The Bondwoman’s Narrative are naive, biased and traumatised narrators that tend to be unreliable as well.

The narrator is probably traumatised by all the horrible events that happened in her life. Living as a slave, seeing all the cruelties done to slaves and the fear of getting caught after several flights must have traumatised the narrator. Although she has never been a victim of torture, she had to watch others being tortured or even killed. One scene that has certainly had an impact on her is the story of the old female slave that wanted to save her dog but both were tortured to death²⁴. The narrator is a tragic figure even when everything turns out well for her in the end. As victims of crimes or similar cruel events tend to forget details or whole parts of their lives in order to protect themselves, traumatised narrators are not regarded as reliable even if they do not tell the truth on purpose. Parts of the story are told in a too positive way so that the reader can start to doubt their truths. It is also strange that the narrator stays very calm when talking about cruelties. She does not show any emotions at all which is not very realistic for the reader.

[...]

1 Cf. Michael Meyer, English and American Literatures. (Tübingen: A. Francke Verlag, 2004) 61.

2 Cf. Renate Hof, Das Spiel des “unreliable narrator“. Aspekte unglaubwürdigen Erzählens am Beispiel von Vladimir Nabokov. (München: Fink Verlag, 1984) 7.

3 Cf. Hof 23.

4 Cf. Ansgar Nünning, “Unreliable Narration zur Einführung: Grundzüge einer kognitiv-narratologischen Theorie und Analyse unglaubwürdigen Erzählens“. Unreliable Narration. Studien zur Theorie und Praxis unglaubwürdigen Erzählens in der englischsprachigen Erzählliteratur. (Ed. Ansgar Nünning. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 1998) 17.

5 Cf. Gerald Prince, Narratology. The Form and Function of Narrative. (Berlin: Mouton Publishers, 1982) 12.

6 Cf. Prince, Narratology 12.

7 Cf. Prince, Narratology 13.

8 Cf. Horace Porter Abbot, The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) 77.

9 Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction. (Chicago: UP, 1961) 157ff.

10 Gerald Prince, A Dictionary of Narratology. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987).

11 Prince, Dictionary 80-81.

12 Prince, Dictionary 101.

13 Cf. Ansgar Nünning, Grundbegriffe der Literaturtheorie. (Stuttgart: Verlag J. B. Metzler; 2004) 283.

14 Cf. Abbot 77.

15 Cf. Ute Kauer, “Narration” and “Gender” im englischen Roman vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Postmoderne. (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2003) 137.

16 Cf. Kauer 139.

17 Cf. Nünning, Unreliable Narration 18.

18 Cf. Nünning, Unreliable Narration 19.

19 Cf. Nünning, Unreliable Narration 21.

20 Cf. Manfred Jahn, “Package Deals, Exklusionen, Randzonen: Das Phänomen der Unverläßlichkeit in den Erzählsituationen”. Unreliable Narration. Studien zur Theorie und Praxis unglaubwürdigen Erzählens in der englischsprachigen Erzählliteratur. Ed. Ansgar Nünning. (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 1998) 83.

21 Cf. Nünning, Unreliable Narration 24.

22 Cf. Nünning, Unreliable Narration 24.

23 Cf. Gaby Allrath, “But why will you say that I am mad? Textuelle Signale für die Ermittlung von unreliable narration“. Unreliable Narration. Studien zur Theorie und Praxis unglaubwürdigen Erzählens in der englischsprachigen Erzählliteratur. Ed. Ansgar Nünning. (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 1998) 64.

24 Cf. Crafts 20ff.